Celebratio Mathematica

David H. Blackwell

A Tribute to David Blackwell

by Leo A. Goodman

This state­ment, due to space con­straints, will
de­scribe only two ex­per­i­ences that I had with
Dav­id Black­well. The first ex­per­i­ence took place
a very long time ago, and the second took place
more re­cently.

After Dav­id re­ceived his Ph.D., he was giv­en
a one-year ap­point­ment as a postdoc­tor­al fel­low
at the In­sti­tute for Ad­vanced Study at Prin­ceton.
When his ten­ure at the In­sti­tute was draw­ing
to a close, he ap­plied for teach­ing po­s­i­tions at
105 his­tor­ic­ally black col­leges and uni­versit­ies.
He didn’t ap­ply to in­sti­tu­tions that were not
black in­sti­tu­tions be­cause it was as­sumed at that
time that such in­sti­tu­tions would not ac­cept him
be­cause of his race. His first teach­ing job was at
South­ern Uni­versity in Bat­on Rouge, Louisi­ana, and
his second was at Clark Col­lege in At­lanta, Geor­gia.
In 1944 he joined the math­em­at­ics de­part­ment
at Howard Uni­versity in Wash­ing­ton, D.C., and he
was pro­moted to full pro­fess­or and head of the
de­part­ment in 1947. He stayed there un­til 1954. I
was a fac­ulty mem­ber in the stat­ist­ics de­part­ment
at the Uni­versity of Chica­go be­gin­ning in 1950,
and in 1951 or 1952 we in­vited Dav­id to be­come
a pro­fess­or in our de­part­ment. We made him a
good of­fer. I be­lieve we were the first uni­versity
that was not a black uni­versity to of­fer him a job.
This was, as I have just noted, in 1951 or 1952.

He turned us down. Here is why. This is what
he told me: He was born and grew up in a
small town, Centralia, in south­ern Illinois right on
the bor­der­line of se­greg­a­tion. If you went a bit
south of Centralia to the south­ern tip of Illinois,
the schools were com­pletely se­greg­ated in those
days. Centralia had one school only for blacks,
one school only for whites, and a few “mixed”
schools. He at­ten­ded one of the “mixed” schools.
His fam­ily would some­times travel north in Illinois
from Centralia to vis­it re­l­at­ives liv­ing in Chica­go;
and he could see, when he vis­ited his re­l­at­ives
liv­ing there, what life was really like for black
people liv­ing in Chica­go. He told me that he would
def­in­itely prefer to live with his wife and chil­dren
in Wash­ing­ton, D.C., where Howard Uni­versity is
loc­ated, than to live with them in Chica­go.

Dav­id didn’t ac­cept our Uni­versity of Chica­go
of­fer; but in 1954, he ac­cep­ted an ap­point­ment at
the Uni­versity of Cali­for­nia at Berke­ley as a vis­it­ing
pro­fess­or for the 1954–1955 aca­dem­ic year. And
start­ing with the 1955–1956 aca­dem­ic year, he
was a pro­fess­or in the stat­ist­ics de­part­ment at the
Uni­versity of Cali­for­nia at Berke­ley.

The second ex­per­i­ence that I had with Dav­id,
which I will de­scribe next, dates from the late 1990s
and early 2000s. I moved from be­ing a fac­ulty
mem­ber at the Uni­versity of Chica­go to be­ing a
fac­ulty mem­ber at the Uni­versity of Cali­for­nia at
Berke­ley in 1987, so Dav­id and I were col­leagues
from then on. In 1998 a best-selling book called A
Beau­ti­ful Mind was pub­lished, and it in­spired the
mak­ing of a movie with the same name in 2001
that won four Academy Awards. The book was a
bio­graphy of
John Nash,
the win­ner of a No­bel
Me­mori­al Prize in Eco­nom­ic Sci­ences. The prize
was for the re­search that Nash had done on game
the­ory when he was a gradu­ate stu­dent in the
math­em­at­ics de­part­ment at Prin­ceton Uni­versity.
Be­cause of the book, the movie, and the No­bel
Me­mori­al Prize, in­terest in Nash was high for
quite a few years — even, it seems, for ex­ample,
among San Fran­cisco’s so­cial elite, mem­bers of
the Bo­hemi­an Club and Bo­hemi­an Grove.
Al­bert (Al) Bowker,
a de­voted mem­ber of the Bo­hemi­an
Club and Bo­hemi­an Grove — and also a well-known
stat­ist­i­cian and former chan­cel­lor at the Uni­versity
of Cali­for­nia at Berke­ley and a friend of Dav­id’s
and a friend of mine — in­vited Dav­id and me to
speak about Nash at the Bo­hemi­an Club. Al in­vited
Dav­id be­cause Dav­id was an ex­pert in game the­ory,
and he in­vited me be­cause John Nash and I had
been gradu­ate stu­dents at the same time in the
math­em­at­ics de­part­ment at Prin­ceton. John and I
were friends then, and we con­tin­ued to be friends
after leav­ing Prin­ceton. On the even­ing when Dav­id
and I spoke at the Bo­hemi­an Club, Dav­id spoke
beau­ti­fully — as he al­ways did. It was strik­ing to see
how well he was able to speak on game the­ory to
this audi­ence — mem­bers of the Bo­hemi­an Club — who were largely un­fa­mil­i­ar with this rather ar­cane
sub­ject. I think that the audi­ence did gain some
un­der­stand­ing of what game the­ory was about and
why Nash’s re­search was im­port­ant. Dav­id and I
had a good time, and our talks were well re­ceived.
Dav­id was, simply, a great lec­turer and teach­er, as
well as a gra­cious and in­ter­est­ing col­league and a
ster­ling hu­man be­ing. We all miss him very much.

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